This invention is concerned with an apparatus for machining caliper blocks and brackets of motorcar disk brakes.
As well known in the art, production of disk brake caliper blocks and brackets starts from a blank generally consisting of a workpiece cast in iron or aluminum, which undergoes a set of machining steps comprising milling, facing, boring, drilling and tapping, which operations may be made along different axes.
An approach that is often adopted nowadays in the mass production of caliper blocks and brackets is to set up a highly automated machining line, which is typically capable of a cycle time of about 20 sec/cycle, giving rise to a production of the order of a few thousands pieces/day (i.e., a few hundreds of pieces/hour). The drawback of such approach is the high rigidity of the dedicated line, which makes the line obsolete as soon as the production is changed. If such a change takes place prematurely with respect to the initial forecast, e.g. where a motorcar model has not been successful, this may cause a serious economic damage, since not always the line can be equipped for another production, and the investment in the equipment is then lost.
A highly flexible approach is, on the other hand, to perform machining in a machining center. This, however, requires a few minutes for one work cycle, and consequently this approach is economically viable only where the production required is less than 20 pieces/hour, as in the case of caliper blocks and brackets for lorries, or for deluxe cars.
When the production required is of the order of 50 to 100 pieces/hour, or when the lifetime of a model is uncertain, neither of the above approaches is clearly satisfactory, in the former case, because the risk that the investment in the equipment is not recovered is high, in the latter case, because the cost of the part turns out to be excessively high.
The main object of this invention is now to provide an apparatus for machining motorcar disk brake caliper blocks and brackets which provides a production that is definitely higher than a machining center, while being capable of being re-equipped in case of a production change.
The invention achieves the above and other objects and advantages, such as will appear from the following disclosure, with an apparatus for machining motorcar disk brake caliper blocks and brackets, having the feutures set out in claim 1.
The dependent claims define other advantageous features of the invention.